"In the bowling alleys, in the easy living, something good got lost along the way." Paul Buchanan. "High" by The Blue Nile.
Thirty years ago, May 1989, Glasgow. A warm summer was
beginning. I have a memory for these things. It was also a pretty decent summer
for music too, I think? Jason Donovan aside, though he was right; there are too
many broken hearts in the world. There was Midnight Oil, Beds Are Burning, a
good tune with a strong political message. I can’t actually remember much else.
But there was an album, Street Fighting Years by Simple Minds, released in May
1989. Lots of people liked them, lots of people didn’t. Back then, they were a
pretty sizeable operation. And they were from Glasgow too.
For me, I’d become a fan a
couple of years before, when I heard their live album, called Live In The City Of Light. Copied on tape from the LP by my friend’s big brother. I was blown
away and bombarded my mother with it in the car for a couple of years, much to
her dismay, I suspect. An album of power and great atmosphere. I was hooked and
devoured their back catalogue, as varied and original as any British rock band,
I’d say. As a youngster to become a big fan of a band, is an emotional
experience, so my anticipation of their first new album since I had become a
fan was huge. I knew a couple of tracks already, Belfast Child, in particular,
a number one single, so there was anticipation. Nobody would write a song about
Northern Ireland these days. Nobody
needs to, perhaps? 1989 was a more volatile time in that part of the world. Also, the
internet has allowed us all to have a say. And gentrification in the UK as a
whole; Coffee shops, sourdough and vegan muffins have smoothed things over. Collectively,
we’re just all a bit smoother and smugger than we were in 1989. The middle
classes, at least.
Anyway, I bought the cassette and I still, just
about, remember listening to the title track for the first time. Acoustic bass
and rolling piano chords? Slide guitar? No crashing drums. It was all very soft.
Soft but insistent. The antithesis of the live album, but I thought it was
beautiful. I still do. An emotive song which starts off a gentle stream,
transforms itself into a huge powerful ocean wave and then ends as a long
tranquil river flowing into the sea. It was dedicated to a man called Victor
Jara, a Chilean folk singer, a voice of freedom, murdered by the state. It was
that type of Album. Soul Crying out, another beauty, was about the Poll Tax.
Remember the Poll Tax? “Like a tax on breathing” as Jim Kerr, the singer called
it. And they tried it on Scotland first. Nice move, Maggie! This Is Your Land - with an ecological polemic, presumably inspired by This Land Is Our
Land a Woodie Guthrie song, covered by Bruce Springsteen - had guest vocals by
Lou Reed. You’d have to feel pretty good about life if Lou Reed agrees to perform
your song, wouldn’t you? Manu Katché, the sensational Peter Gabriel drummer was there. And
Stewart Copeland, legendary drummer with the Police got involved too. Pretty
good team, I’d say.
I still listen to those three songs. They’ve
endured, the rest perhaps a little less so? The album ends with a beautiful bagpipe
track called When Spirits Rise too. Again this was new. Simple Minds were
pretty electronic in the early days. They had dance beats. Then came lush,
ambient sounds and atmosphere. Then they become a rock band. Now it was
bagpipes and violins. It was an original type of album. It’s not considered a
classic, but there is some greatness there, for me. And courage, to move away
from their previous success and completely change the style. It was, also, a
different time for popular music. Rock Bands had a part to play in the political
process. Simple Minds, amongst others, were partly responsible for helping to
release Nelson Mandela. They wrote the song Mandela Day for the Mandela concert
at Wembley stadium, the previous year. That summer, 1989, they filled Wembley
stadium themselves and played that song as well as other anti-apartheid
classics; Biko by Peter Gabriel and Sun
City by Little Steven, Bruce Springsteen guitarist and collaborator. A year
later, Mandela was free. These days Wembley is filled by Ed Sheeran’s
one-man-band, sponsored by Ryan Air. Popular music, like flying used to be a bit more romantic, a bit
more exciting, a bit less smooth and a bit more dangerous.
The record and tour were big news. They were
big, though it lost them America, commercially at least, maybe a bit too
militant for the Regan Era or just too different from the previous studio
record, “Once Upon A Time” which was very successful there. Furthermore, at the
end of the year, after the tour, their original keyboard player - integral to their sound since the
beginning - Mick McNeil, left the band, never to return. Maybe it all got a bit
too much for him. Either way, Simple Minds, for me, at least were never quite
the same. And I’ve never quite got over it. As I said, it was an emotional involvement.
The political activism never really returned either. 1989 was just that kind of
year, I suppose. Tiananmen Square, China. The Berlin Wall coming down,
accompanied, perhaps not unsurprisingly, in news reels by another song from the same
album, Let It All Come Down. You’d think they’d planned it, but I don’t think
they did, it was just that type of year. And they’re still doing it, Jim Kerr
and the highly under-rated guitarist Charlie Burchill, thirty years later and
good on them, they continue to create new music and tour the world successfully
with varying line-ups as opposed to doing 80’s re-union tours to pay the bills.
They haven’t stood still. Nostalgia shouldn’t be a lament, but quite naturally,
it often is. I try to live in the moment, though a part of me, will forever
want to be back in my room for a little while, that May of 1989, West End of
Glasgow, trees blowing in the summer breeze, listening to that album for the
first time.
